Since the sparring conducted on the "promotionals" is almost full contact (light to the head would not draw too many outcries) and with full equipment. I took Jacques Yves Theriault's suggestion from his book "Full Contact Karate".

Despite the fact that his champinoships were far in the past, as was the writing of his book Iin connection which i had sveral nice conversations with Steve Jennings, and Isshin Ryu Instructor who acted as an assitatnt to Theriault in writing his book and an author of his own book, "Winning Karate".

The Offensive technique section is a bit 'dated", but the defensive techniques, I think, will always work.

My 'crew' is, as noted , a bit resitant to "new" ideas. so WE (read me here) started the so called Punching dumming " Drill; to be done at the end of every class.

One Student (or myself) in full gear, after being "taught" as best I can Theriaults defensive footwork and defensive handwork, is sent to the center of the ring to defend against hand techniques. Defense against foot tecniques is done later, and combined as soon as the student is comfortable with what is, in part, a new 'blocking systems, enabled by the gloved hands.

This is not an implied criticism of Uechi, but, when one has padded hands, shins, feet etc, it is easily noted that one can do "more with less".

A high/middle guard is used by the defender.

Three defensive lines are set up in the "defendant's mind" the third being the area where the attacker must move in to be enabled to make contact with hand or foot.

The Second zone encompasses the area from which a foot technique, at the very least from the fron front; would reach, but the hands are out of range. Here proficiency with the "stutter step" is useful to move from zone three to two, and two to one. once inside zone one, where one might not wish to permanently reside, the front foot always move first in a forward attack. Likewise in zone one, the rear foot is moved first when retreating or taking a rear angle.

Zone one is where either hand or the foot from either hand or either foot can score.

Most traditional Uechi blocks are NOT encouraged for use. However, having said that, the gedan remains usefull. None are forbidenn, so to speak, but the idea is to limit hand "flailing" about and keep the guard around the "core".

Instant return to 'guard" is encouraged as opposed to sanchin or ready thrust. This might cause some "loss of points" in Okinawan scoring, but shold reduce the number of time one is struck.

Leg blocks are encouraged, so the instuctor has to be sure the student (ie: the dummy) does not spend as much time with the front foot weighted as might be encouraged in classic boxing.

T'ai chi cross Training is somewhat helpful here for many reasons, not the least of which being the fact that the form has the practitioner is "double weighted" (50/50 weight distribution) only four times in 108 movements, the starting position of the first section, the starting position of the secons section, the starting position of the ending section, and at the end of the said last/third section.

Despite this constant shifting, the pratictioner is seriously taught how to maintian a good connection to the ground through out and proper "architectural connections" at all times.